Straw

The stack of straw votes accumulated at a cost of perhaps $1,000,000 by the Literary Digest (weekly opinion collector) is pointed to as one of the most momentous signs of the campaign. Last week, in its fifth installment, it showed Hoover ahead in 44 of the 48 states. The totals were: Hoover, 1,593,436; Smith 910,234. The electoral votes thus far forecast were: Hoover, 488, Smith, 43.

A reason that the Literary Digest poll has received serious attention is that in 1924 it forecast the electoral votes received by President Coolidge with 99.44% accuracy.

Penetrating behind the electoral votes predicted in 1924 to the ratios of popular votes then predicted by the Literary Digest, Democrats last week pointed to wider margins of error. Dr Fabian Franklin, Manhattan economist-publicist, in a debate by letter with Editor William Seaver Woods of the Literary Digest, compared the predicted ratios of Davis and Coolidge votes in 1924 with actual ratios. In 22 states, the Literary Digest's figures predicting what percentage of the Coolidge vote the Davis vote would be, put the Davis vote from 10% to 48% too low. Had the 1924 election not been a Coolidge landslide, contended Critic Franklin, these gross errors in popular vote would have been reflected in the electoral result.

Seizing upon last week's Literary Digest figures and correcting them by factors of error in the 1924 straw vote, Chairman Raskob soon snowed his candidate easily carrying, for example, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois.